Monday, February 23, 2026

More on the War against Ukraine

 Ukraine continues to fight both Putin And Trump. Europe has finally realized that USA is NOT negotiating for peace, rather trying to force Ukraine into giving up territory. 

Moral in the Russian army is at rock bottom. Rusia is losing 35,000 men per month and has lost 1.25 million since the war began. Ukraine is beginning to push back on the ground, but continues to lose the air war agains drones and missiles. No matter how often Ukrine hits drone or missile site, they keep coming. The electrical grid is being destroyed as fast as it can be repaired.

EU has sent generators with reinforced concrete covers to provide electricity to critical places such as hospitals. My step-son in Zhovti Vody reports 8 hours of electricity yesterday, up from 2 hours.

Ukraine's air war focuses on destroying Russian refineries, storage and transport, to cut off Russian revenue and ability to fuel their equipment. In some places gasoline is rationed. 

Here are a few articles to provide background and the current situation.

Day 1461 of Putin’s Three-Day War - Paul Krugman

Weekend Update #173: Ukraine Liberates Hundreds Of Square Kilometres, What Might It Mean?

A war foretold: how the CIA and MI6 got hold of Putin’s Ukraine plans and why nobody believed them | Ukraine | The Guardian

Saturday, February 21, 2026

ADHD and Me

 The fact that there is a highway to Hell and a stairway to Heaven gives you an idea of anticipated traffic volume. Regardless, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions

ADHD has a number of symptoms including easily distrrac..look, a squirrel. Or a fox. Another is the intention to do something but never doing it, or having started it, never finishing. 

My father had ADHD but of course no one ever heard of it in those days. He never finished a project that I recall. Nor could he dispose of anything as he was always going to "do something with it". Our 1952 Massey Clipper combine being a prime example, that he was going to turn into a hopper to distribute grain to cattle on the ground. My brother sent it to scrap, cleaning up the yard after his death 24 years ago

He built a machine shed but never got the doors put on it. The house he remodeled never had the finishing nails set around the window frames. 

I intend to write a blog post on a weekly basis. It has been two weeks and this isn't the post I intended to write. I intend to volunteer at the Museum just a 30 minute walk from our home. So far not. 

My oldest gave me a leather embossing kit for Christmas. I finally found someone to teach me but they live a long bus ride away. Maybe when the weather warms up and I have $200 to buy the leather and pay for instrution. I miss doing woodworking but have no where to do it. This may be a good substitute. 

I could not organize a drunken brawl at an Irish wake. Tanya and my oldest help me out there as they are both highly organized. I do manage to walk Lucky every day, weather permitting mostly because he nags. 

I have been meaning to write a children's book about Lucky and have actually started it, have a mental outline some of which is on paper. I put it off for years because I didnt know what to do about illustrations. I am now going to worry about that after I get it written. And only then will I learn how to market it. 

There are many things to blog about that are NOT politics. We can all use a break from that on both sides of the border. 

Dont go away. They may get bogged about eventually.  


Saturday, February 7, 2026

Some thoughts on Ukraine

 Ukraine is fighting both Russia and the Trump Administration. USA just signed a $65 billion worth of business deals with Russia. While Republicans side with Ukraine, they cannot get much past Trump.

Elon Musk has disabled Russia's ability to use Starlink to guide their Shaheed drones. Since he fell out with Trump, he has done a few useful things, I guess.

Ukraine is winning on the ground, chewing up over 35,000 russian soldiers per month and actually starting to push them back in the odd place, even though the Russians keep moving forward slower than a snail's pace. 

The Russian economy is imploding. Interest rates are nominally 20%, actual real loans run as high aas 30% interest. Businesses are going bankrupt, unable to buy inputs or pay employees. Skilled employees are scarce on the ground, either having fled or sent to the front. Consumer goods including food are hard to come by. 

Last night Russia sent 40 missiles and 450 drones into Ukraine last night. all recent attacks have targeted Ukrainian electical and gas hubs, leaving millions without light, heat or water. However Karma is striking back hard as the severe cold is destroying old Soviet infrastructure that was never maintained.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1780016036005874

  https://www.facebook.com/reel/1749989352362464 

USA is no lonjger a reliable partner in NATO. Europe now understand that they need to both a strong political alliance (EU) and a strong military alliance that is not fragmented with each country needing to specialize in specific military equipment. How fast they can gear up is the question. 

I have not been blogging lately as I have been working on getting my wife's documents from IRCC. That is a rant for a future post


Thursday, January 22, 2026

Oh, Canada

 The whole world is talking about the 17 minute speech our Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered at Davos and justifiable so. He got a standing ovation, the third one in the history of Davos. the other two being Nelson Mandela and Volodymyr Zelenskyy. 

Canada is seen as the new leader of the free world. PM Carney said what others thought but wouldn't say. We have separated ourselves from America and are making some 19 alliances with other middle powers. We also signed a trillion dollars worth of trade deals with China and now with development billions from Dubai. 

To tht end, I have collected a few memes about our great country. 










Sun dogs east of Regina (Thanks, Terri)

Temps today in Saskatoon. Typical January

Replaced by the Loonie

Replaced by the Twonie


Wednesday, January 7, 2026

Are we next?

USA Ambassador to Canada can't understand why Canada would not want to be the 51st State. Maybe these will help him understand if someone reads them to him.



 Trump's attack on Venuzuela seems to have triggered even more madness. Declaring that USA must have Greenland for security reasons in nonsense as USA has a military base on Greenalnd and a defense agreement with Denmark. Yes, Greenland has mineral resources but I expect Trump is too stupid to know why that is important. Stephen Miller is actually running foreign policy along homeland security's ICE, deporting, imprisonng or out right killing Brown pople. There are 65 million Hispanics in US of which many were there before USA was a country. If Stephen Miller has his way they will all be disposed of one way or another. 

Whether Trump will attack Canada militarily or not is debateable. Economic warfare is more likely. CUSMA is up for renewal and Trump will likely refuse to negotiate a new agreement. Carney is doing his best to put Canada in the EU trading block and now in the EU SAFE program. F35's are out, Grippen is in. NATO is dead. 

This is from Sean Prpick on Facebook, taken from a Globe and Mail opinion piece. 

A pretty bracing column has been published in the Globe & Mail by leading scholars Thomas Homer-Dixon and Adam Gordon, raising the possibility of a post-Venezuela military invasion of Canada. Their scenario hinges on failed independence referendum in Alberta creating a “casus belli” for Trump, who will denounce the results as “fake” and then roll invasion forces across the 49th parallel. But…I’m going to raise the ante here and say the scenario could be even worse.
I think there’s a better than even chance that a sympathetic Sask Party government will be so "moved" by Premier Smith’s referendum, should it take place, they will stage a coordinated referendum here at the same time.
Homer-Dixon and Gordon predict a 30% “Yes” vote for separation in Alberta.
I think it would be about 15% here in Saskatchewan, but the margin of victory for pro-Canada forces in twin referendums probably doesn’t matter.
The vote here in my province would be be equally “fake” in Trump’s eyes and any results coming out from Elections Saskatchewan will just incite him more.
And that'll raise the chances he’ll invade, not only sending military columns through Alberta border crossings but ours as well.
Homer-Dixon and Gordon are right.
However fantastic these scenarios appear today we have to be ready in the near future.
********************
“We Need to Prepare for the Possibility that the U.S. Uses Military Coercion Against Canada”
By Thomas Homer-Dixon, who is executive director of the Cascade Institute at Royal Roads University and professor emeritus at the University of Waterloo.
And Adam Gordon, who served as the senior legal and policy adviser to Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and is currently an affiliated researcher at the Cascade Institute.
So, this is the “peace president" ?
Donald Trump promised that under his leadership the U.S. would eschew “nation building,” “forever wars,” “regime change,” and violent foreign engagements more generally.
Yet since his second inauguration, he’s ordered military action in Syria, Yemen, Somalia and Iraq; bombed Iran’s nuclear weapons complexes; and blown up more than a score of boats allegedly carrying drugs in the Caribbean.
In just the past two weeks, he has launched missiles against Islamic terrorists in northern Nigeria, declared that the U.S. was “locked and loaded” for another attack on Iran, and now decapitated Venezuela’s government.
In this context, Canadians must acknowledge the real risk that Mr. Trump will use military coercion against our country.
It’s important to connect three recent data points. First, in his press conference on Saturday, Mr. Trump explicitly stated that the Venezuela operation’s aim was to secure access to the country’s oil. Then, in an interview with The Atlantic on Sunday, he refused to rule out military action to seize Greenland – despite the fact that Greenland is a democracy and, through Denmark, a NATO member – saying, “We do need Greenland, absolutely
From Mr. Trump’s perspective, three dominant powers – Russia, China, and the U.S. – are establishing coercive hegemony in their respective domains. With its oil, minerals and water, Canada is a vital resource hinterland in the U.S.’s part of the map.
Second, the just-released U.S. National Security Strategy outlines the “‘Trump corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine” and identifies U.S. “pre-eminence” in the Western Hemisphere as a main geostrategic objective.
But Canada can’t count on exclusion from the doctrine’s ambit. In the 1950s through the 1980s, when the U.S. intervened in Guatemala, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Chile, Nicaragua, Grenada, and Panama, it was looking south and treated us as more an irrelevancy than a vassal. In contrast, today the Trump administration has little affection for Canada, and it’s clearly concerned about geostrategic insecurities as far north as the high Arctic.
Third, and finally, nothing in international law protects Canada that shouldn’t have protected Venezuela. As a nation, we rely on exactly the same rules – the obligation to respect state sovereignty, the prohibition on use of force and the principle of non-intervention – for our own
Connecting these dots, a plausible scenario for U.S. application of military force against Canada to seize our oil resources goes something like this.
An independence referendum in Alberta – during which separatists receive a huge infusion of grey MAGA money – sees a majority vote to remain part of Canada, but with 30 per cent or more voting for separation. Mr. Trump declares the result is “fake” and that actual support for separation was “well over” 50 per cent.
Alberta separatists then appeal to the U.S. for help, claiming various kinds of oppression.
The U.S. moves troops to the northern Montana border and tells the rest of Canada that Alberta must be allowed to join America as the “51st state.”
In the above situation, ensuring electoral-process integrity is clearly job one. We can also make it clear to the U.S. that any use of military force will be extremely costly, by dramatically accelerating investments in national service and homeland defence, rapidly building out domestic defence industries, and developing a national drone strategy.
Finally, we should bolster ties with traditional allies and novel partners alike and work alongside those who are similarly threatened by giant neighbours, such as Finland, the Baltic republics, Mexico and Taiwan.
We should aim to marshal a global consensus that such flagrant violations of international law are unacceptable and will bring the U.S. costly reputational harm, as has been true for Russia – harm that will only grow exponentially if the U.S. repeats such actions in Canada or elsewhere.
The world is wildly non-linear now, so little can be predicted with confidence.
“Running” Venezuela – whatever that means – will almost certainly not work in the longer term, as the country fractures or rallies against the U.S.; and elsewhere in the world, China might use the action against Venezuela as a license to attack Taiwan
But whatever surprises are in store, one fact is certain: our neighbour’s autocratic and avaricious leader is demonstrably eager to use his country’s massive military power to advance his interests.
We must get ready.

Friday, January 2, 2026

Who Knows Where the Time Goes?

 When Judy Collins released "Colors of the Day" in 1972, I was working for the Honourable Company of 
Adventures aka Here Before Christ in Inuvik and Cambridge Bay. It showed up in our stocks a year later, I bought it and nearly wore it out. Her cover of Ian Tyson's Someday Soon has never been equalled and earned her a spot on CBC's Ian and Sylvia Ten-Year Reunion in 1986 

Time goes by slowly but when you look back, 50 years has gone by. Who knows where the time goes?  Judy Collins is performing in concert in Saskatoon on January 27th. My daughter gave me tickets for Christmas.